X
- 1952
- Approved
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 16 m
- 1952
- Approved
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 16 m
Summary After being dumped by his girlfriend, an airline pilot pursues a babysitter in his hotel and gradually realizes she's dangerous.
Directed By: Roy Ward Baker
Written By: Daniel Taradash, Charlotte Armstrong
- 1952
- Approved
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 16 m
- 1952
- Approved
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 16 m
Don't Bother to Knock
61
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
Where to Watch
Summary After being dumped by his girlfriend, an airline pilot pursues a babysitter in his hotel and gradually realizes she's dangerous.
Directed By: Roy Ward Baker
Written By: Daniel Taradash, Charlotte Armstrong
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
61
56% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
44% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
61
56% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
44% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Don't Bother to Knock was the first film to truly grant her a juicy dramatic leading role, one that allowed Monroe to tap into her own childhood traumas and abuse.
The film offered [Monroe] the chance to deliciously unravel as a mentally disturbed babysitter, and she also gained real-world survival skills that she’d put to use nearly a decade later.
DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK is directed with a quick pace by Baker, the Taradash script is as tight as a sardine can, and all the principals do well with their roles, especially lovely Marilyn Monroe.
Daniel Taradash’s script is contrived in spots, and the main virtue of Roy Ward Baker’s direction is its low-key plainness, yet Monroe—appearing here just before she became typecast as a gold-plated sex object—is frighteningly real as the confused babysitter, and the deglamorized setting is no less persuasive.
Marilyn Monroe as a psychotic babysitter. She wasn't yet a box-office star, but her unformed--almost blobby--quality is very creepy, and she dominated this melodrama. In other respects, it's standard, though the New York hotel setting helps, and also the young Anne Bancroft, as a singer who works in the hotel.
The plot is so simple that psychological interest is needed to sustain it, and this would require stronger performances than those Widmark and Monroe give.
It requires a good deal to play a person who is strangely jangled in the head. And, unfortunately, all the equipment that Miss Monroe has to handle the job are a childishly blank expression and a provokingly feeble, hollow voice. With these she makes a game endeavor to pull something out of the role, but it looks as though she and her director, Roy Baker, were not quite certain what.
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